bunch of new ideas

posted on January 11th, 2013, 7:55 am

Hi, after playing for a bit I have some ideas:

1- Borg shouldnt need supplies.
This is self explanatory. Imho it doesnt make sense for a borg faction to need 'supplies' as a resource since the borg drones dont eat, dont need all the stuff the average crew of other races would need in order to perform efficiently. Borg drones are almost a single thing with their ships/facilites as only need power and that comes from the ship and stations power supplies. Their technology is repaired and assembled at microscopic level from the nanoprobes. The resources for the borg faction should be limited to dilithium, tritanium and collective connections to operate vessels.

2- No more federation instant click-2-buy supplies.
This is wrong. The dominion needs to extract them and process them from raw resources, the federation being able to just click and instantly receive big chunks of supplies is way too simplified. The federation should obtain supplies from trading stations where NPC trading vessels would come a at warp speed and dock and unload supplies in exchange for raw resources. First of all this would make the federation more balanced as the federation player should actively protect this facility or risk losing supply lines. Also the trade request should have a cooldown timer so the player would have to plan ahead how to use those supplies effectively and make them last until the next resupply request can be sent out again.

3- More Borg special weapons
Self explanatory. There is a serious lack of variety of special weapons available to borg vessels. Especially the offensive special weapons they are limited to a generic 'devastating attack' and a 'high energy cutting beam'. They are good wepons, dont get me wrong but a bit more of variety would be appreciated. The borg diamond should be able to obtain other high tech support oriented abilities apart the 'bring order to chaos'. The diamond should have the computer override module (they are borg for christ sake they should be able to do that as seen several times in the movies/tv series) another module could be a point defense turret (better than the ultitrium burst thingie in armada 2) Both of those modules would gain bigger benefits the more of the same module you equip.

4- Shields for the Borg vessels.
This is important. When I saw that the borg in this mod dont have access to normal shield technology like the other races I felt like I wanted to cry. Just watch some episodes of Voyager and you will see what I mean. Borg shields are mentioned in every episode that features borg vessels. Also, 'Remodulate shields' is one of their catchphrases for a reason. Why the hell these wannabe borgs in fleet ops dont have shields is beyond comprehension for me. And no please dont say its because they would be overpowered or some stuff like that. Reduce the hull hp and then make them more reliant on shields would make perfect sense and be lore fiendly. Also, the introduction of shields for the borg would allow the creation of shield remodulation modules for some classes, especially the support ones like dodecahedron and the diamond and also would make the players facing borg opponents rely more on anti-shielding high technology abilities not just mass quantum torpedo launchers.

5- More informations when choosing which vessels to build.
The tooltips that are shown when you hover the mouse cursor over a particular ship design should contain more informations. First of all, which default weapon types that vessel has. Where it says the range it should say for example 'phaser array 1x - medium range' or 'quantum torpedo launcher 2x - long range'. This should appear on the borg ship building menu as well so you can see what weapons a ship design has equipped by default instead of having to guess.

6- Borg mixed tech has to be redone entirely.
This is very important too. The borg that are all about adapting, researching perfection, assimilating technologies from other races. These borgs in fleet operations once they scan or assimilate a ship they cant replicate that technology? The borg should have another facility 'technology assimilator' or 'adaption matrix' like in armada 2. Once you have this facility, all the borg vessels equipped with holding beams obtain another active ability, the 'scanning beam' that holds the target vessel in place but instead of transporting drones on board it will analize the target and after a certain time the vessel transmits the data gathered to the technology assimilation facility and there its added as a new researcheable technology. Note that it would still require resources and time and some collective connections to research. After its researched all the borg vessel types that can accomodate that technology would need to do 'refresh cycle' to resync with the unimatrix, receive the blueprints of the new adapted technology and have it assembled when the cycle is completed. Of course the amount and type of active abilities that can be gained this way depend on the vessel type and size (a scoutcube wont be able to mount an ion cannon).

posted on January 11th, 2013, 8:48 am

Hi....

All your questions are answered by reading the guide at:

http://guide.fleetops.net/guide/main


it provides lore for the factions(the game), which ship is good versus what, how to communicate, mine, etc. Please post any other questions which are not answered on the Fleet Operation official guide which is linked above.

I hope this helps.

posted on January 11th, 2013, 11:25 am

oh dear, first off welcome to the forum.

second, your combative tone has made your list of ideas sound a bit like a list of demands.

1) supplies aren't just food, supplies are everything except for dil/tri/cc. eg torpedoes, self sealing stem bolts, computer cores. that sorta stuff. incubation centres are probably just big replicators that make all the random things a ship could need.

2) dominion romulan and klingon can buy supplies at their starbase too. the cost is balanced according to how else the race can get supplies. feds can only get supplies from starbase, so they get the cheapest supply buy. borg supply mining is low risk, they have no supply miners, only stations (which aren't trivial to destroy), so they're not allowed to buy at all. klingons get supply through combat (level up gets supply, brels are tailored for this), so they pay more. and the dominion have the best supply mining in the game (you can mine enough supply to run all 4 players on your team if you play your cards right as dominion), their supply mining is the most efficient, and their miners aren't weak, they also have good ways to protect their mining (perimeters, sensor stations, s7 defenders), so dominion supply buy is expensive.

3) i'd like some more specials as well, but not computer override. in the 2 large scale battles we've seen involving the borg, they've never done any overriding of a computer. they once controlled voyager's computer, but they had to assimilate the tactical officer first to get the password. computer override would just be annoying, guaranteed complete loss of control of a ship sucks. and it wouldn't scale based on player skill. skilled players should be able to put in effort to lessen the effect of their enemy's actions, eg by dodging ion storms faster, but when you take away control of the ship, an experienced player gets hit just as hard as a player with no experience.

4) there's big debate about this. even in the episodes in voyager when "borg shields" are mentioned, they aren't shields meant to block weapons, they are blocking transporters. in fact, even when the "borg shields" are operational, voyager's weapons fire directly impacts the hull every time. this would indicate that the "borg shields" were internal shields, to protect key areas from transporters. so no it's not all about balance. some people just don't agree with your headcanon that borg have shields.

6) all mixed tech is getting redone, there will be massive changes to mixed tech in the future.

as for your suggestion of re-adding technology assimilation: no, no nope nope nope nope. that was one of the more moronic parts of a2. at what point in the show do we ever see stealing of technology like that? it's ridiculous. for one, the idea of just lifting a technology (like hyperimpulse) from a sabre and then the borg cube builds itself a hyperimpulse drive is silly, ships are designed with technology in mind, you can't just insert a new tech onto a borg ship and have it work as if they had just installed a new stick of ram. the borg never stole technology, they adapted to it, to make it useless against them.

posted on January 11th, 2013, 12:09 pm

I like Tech Assimilation, but the A2 way didn't really seem a very Borg-like ability. Modify it so existing abilities gain minor boosts from some specific specials and you have something more fitting for the Borg. They do take enemy tech, but only use it to improve what they already have.

Such as assimilating the Trocobalt increases the range of their torp-based specials.

posted on January 11th, 2013, 12:21 pm

I like Tech Assimilation, but the A2 way didn't really seem a very Borg-like ability. Modify it so existing abilities gain minor boosts from some specific specials and you have something more fitting for the Borg. They do take enemy tech, but only use it to improve what they already have.

Such as assimilating the Trocobalt increases the range of their torp-based specials.

now this i like the sound of, learn how the enemy does things better than you do, then use this knowledge to improve.

posted on January 11th, 2013, 4:38 pm

Hi and welcome to the forums

We are currently redoing the gameplay system of Fleet Operations, and one of the things that will be changing is the supply system . It was not our intention to have a simple 1-click purchase in place forever, and you'll soon see a more Treky-appropriate design for that - more about that in a news post soon .

Each faction will receive many more options in general, and that of course includes the Borg . Many more special technologies are on their way for our cybernetic friends!

In regard to shields, we follow the TNG model of the Borg. Shields there were not visible - we have our own compromise with the Adaptor, whereby two EM Modules allow you to project a limited duration conventional shield.

Assimilation is always a tricky subject, partly because of coding limitations, and partly because of complexity. What weapon do the Borg get if they assimilate Defensive Patterns, what do they get if they assimilate Imperial Stance? There are about 80 special technologies that belong to vessels in Fleet Operations - coming up with something unique for every single one would be quite painful. We consider "true assimilation" to be more suited for mixed technology, because we want Borg-captured units to add something quite unique to their faction. If of course someone is willing to come up with technology assimilation ideas that work in all circumstances, we're more than happy to hear them!

posted on January 11th, 2013, 7:28 pm

in fact, even when the "borg shields" are operational, voyager's weapons fire directly impacts the hull every time. this would indicate that the "borg shields" were internal shields, to protect key areas from transporters. so no it's not all about balance. some people just don't agree with your headcanon that borg have shields.

Nope.
Borg shields block energy weapons fire as well.
Please watch Voyager season 5 ep. 15 'Dark frontier'.
Watch the fight in the beginning and you will see what im talking about.
Voyager's phaser fire is clearly being blocked by the probe's shields and it has the same exact visual effect Voyager's shields have when hit by enemy weapons.
And later on when Seven is brought along to assist in the assimilation she helps the Borg Queen remodulate shielding of the Queen's Diamond to absorb rotating phaser frequencies they are being targeted with.
So yes, on some of their vessels Borg have traditional shields as well.
Maybe what you said about EM internal only shields can apply to larger vessels, like the command cubes sent to earth and stopped when Picard becomes Locutus and later during Star Trek first contact.
But all the other vessels should have standard shield technology as well.

posted on January 11th, 2013, 7:52 pm

]
Nope.
Borg shields block energy weapons fire as well.
Please watch Voyager season 5 ep. 15 'Dark frontier'..

that's the only instance of traditional shielding in all of star trek. the one appearance. and it's in a pretty silly sequence that culminates with the strategy of beaming a photon torpedo onto the enemy ship to blow it up. it seems like an obvious strat, yet it never ever gets used at any other time. the only answer is that ships can resist such simple transporter based attacks with some countermeasure. allowing such a silly strat would make standard battle kind of superperflous, hence why we only ever see it once in the entire show. so no, your evidence isn't strong enough, for that one time a probe had shields, every single other encounter (standard voyager borg cube, tactical cube, command cube, big sphere, little sphere) they had no traditional shields. now you see why people can disagree with your headcanon.

And later on when Seven is brought along to assist in the assimilation she helps the Borg Queen remodulate shielding of the Queen's Diamond to absorb rotating phaser frequencies they are being targeted with.

same episode. i prefer (this is a headcanon moment) to see this as bad writing, what it should have said was adapt to their weapons, rather than fiddle with shields.

posted on January 11th, 2013, 10:41 pm

+ the idea of borg external shields is kinda boring. every other race has shields. why must the borg have them? its more intresting for gameplay if they don't.

and just because something is "headcannon" does not mean its a good addition to the game. Take Promie MVAM, Uber Quantums, Deflector Pulse, DS9 Prophet ship eraseing, or any other 1 episode Deus Ex Machina as examples... all very bad ideas and toxic to constructive gameplay.

EDIT: AND i'm not done:

idea 5. is a bad idea. Clouding the Nice Simple Clean Tooltip with A TON of information about EVERYTHING the ship does would be HORRIBLE.

there's a guide for a reason

posted on January 12th, 2013, 12:19 am

I have to throw my 2 cents in, I agree with Myles, we never really see Borg shields in general use. The diamond could be just because it was the borg queens ship, and added precaution. I suppose probes could have them because of their small size, not as good ability to adapt perhaps? But as a whole the collective doesnt really seem to value shields, and why would they? I mean whats the point? If they want to block transporters they have a dampening field they can put up, and it seems likely that same dampening field can somehow adapt to weapons fire as we see in TNG where the Enterprise phasers and torpedos seem to impact the hull but get absorbed somehow, there was no shield present as Data and Warf flew right next to the cube and beamed onboard. And again in voyager every time we see them engage anything bigger its always been direct hull hits, same as first contact. So I agree, no shields for borg.

As far as gameplay wise, why bother? Why give them shields when they have such a high hull and dont really need it? The only reason to give them shields (assuming that the modified borg ships shields and hull would be equal to the orginal borg ships hull as to keep it the same overall amount of HP) would be to stop people from beaming over, which is a futile thing in the first place! You ever tried to take over a borg ship in FO? If your at the point where you can then youve already won anyway .

posted on January 12th, 2013, 12:27 am

idea 5. is a bad idea. Clouding the Nice Simple Clean Tooltip with A TON of information about EVERYTHING the ship does would be HORRIBLE.

there's a guide for a reason

Whilst I disagree with pretty much everything else the OP says, I have to semi-defend this point. KA2 has tooltips along these lines, but they don't tell you EVERYTHING, only pertinent information (hull and shield strength, crew complement, weapon loadouts etc) so you can see the difference between your ship construction choices without having to alt-tab to the manual pdf

I agree though, overloading it with info is baaaad. It's a fine balance.

posted on January 12th, 2013, 12:46 am

I do like lots of description but an ingame encyclopidia would be the best way to do this. That being said I have gone of out my way to read the descriptions on every weapon and updgrade on every ship that I could build or in the case of the Feds , warp in. They are creative and fun to read and sort of flesh out the units more fully than just Tank, Support, Offense units which are the norm for most RTS units. Keep those but feel free to add an encyclopdeia with all that useluss information that people like me enjoy reading just for the hell fo it.

For perspective I am probably abnormal in that regard as I read and collect books in TES games.

posted on January 12th, 2013, 1:08 am

dont all borg vessels have a different/more advanced kind of shield? needing to take a hit 1st on the hull, then adapt to the weapon and become immune to that weapon.

the reason for first contact onwards to not see that on the borg ships is that the feds alternate the weapons frequency to keep them from adapting.

the species in fleet ops have gotten wise to that and now that borg tech is redundant to them.

besides, its good to have diversity. i wasnt keen on how the borg was in armada.


tho this rases an interesting idea.
the cloak system is being upgraded to be more of a "cat and mouse game" for resaerching to keep ahead of the game.
could something similar be done for the borg adapting and the other races having to adapt to that adaption?

also
like the breens weapons and the feds/klingons having to adapt to its disabling effects.

posted on January 12th, 2013, 1:43 am

I dunno how you can say borg tech is getting redundant, that are always adapting and changing their tech. And as far as alternating frequencies, it didnt really help them in TNG, even rotating frequencies the borg adapted to eventually. In FC you have to remember it was the first time in a few years the borg made an assault on the federation, so in that time they evolved their weapoms and technology so the borg had to try and re-adapt to the weapons. But there was no indication of any traditional shields. And by Voyager there was so much villin decay it wasnt even funny. But still no real use of shields.

posted on January 12th, 2013, 2:04 am

by redundant i mean the feds have come up with a way of doing damage with every hit and not letting the borg adapt to it. its redundant in its current form to the feds but not every species.

the way i saw it was that,
in tng the galaxy's weapons ability to adapt was limited (since they had never needed to do it before and not researched it), i seem to remember something about "upper em band" or something. that managed to punch through and took out the tractor beam. but the borg adapted later and destroyed everything at wolf 359.

years later the enterprise e and all the other ships had better adapting weapons since they had now researched it (but the hand weapons have less capability) and the borg couldnt adapt to the forever changing ship weapons. but if they could the borg would of been invulnerable (like the drones when they adapt)

so the borg "shields" dont work like the feds conventional ones, they rely on taking a hit 1st to analyse it and the damage it does to adapt to it.
(as i recall the borgs "shilelds" dont have a visible reaction like the drones green barrier)

thats how i see it anyway